


Acceleration

by epiproctan



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Developing Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff, Galaxy Garrison, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Secret Relationship, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 08:29:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9713411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epiproctan/pseuds/epiproctan
Summary: He was tied to this moment like he’d never been tied to anything before in his life.ASheithlentinesfic.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is a fic written for [SoapySheep](https://twitter.com/SoapySheep) in the [Sheithlentines](https://twitter.com/sheithlentines) exchange! ngl pure fluff isn't something that comes easy for me so i really hope this turned out okay. happy valentine’s day, i hope you enjoy it!!

The corridors of the Garrison were a place cadets were not supposed to be at this hour, but if “not supposed to”s had ever stopped Keith he wouldn’t even be in this building at all. All was quiet here except for the occasional footsteps of distant officers patrolling the halls for wayward cadets, as they did every night in predictable patterns. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to not get caught out here, only a fighter pilot cadet with a goal in mind and the will to take himself there. Keith felt at ease as he peeked around a corner.

It was clear, and he was on his way, quietly padding down the hall. Only a few more turns and he’d reach his destination, even fewer before he could relax even further. No one would be in the halls of the officers’ wing this time of night, not with them either strolling the main corridors or taking care of whatever officers did when the sun set and the sky went dark enough to see what was out there.

Easy. No one in sight. He’d have a clear path to his destination, and there was no way he could get caught now.

“You there. Cadet.”

Keith froze. _Dammit_. He let his shoulders square up, held his chin high as footsteps approached him from behind. He wasn’t going to give the pleasure of turning around and looking contrite.

“Lights out was twenty minutes ago,” said the officer who approached him from behind. Must’ve snuck up on him while he was expecting one from the other direction. “You’re breaking curfew _and_ you’re out of uniform.”

Biting the inside of his cheek, Keith tried to keep his words from slipping out, but they did anyway.

“What are you going to do about it?” he asked, not sparing the officer a salute or a  glance, even as he stepped up beside Keith into his peripherals. 

“I should report you.” The officer turned, stopped directly in front of Keith. Despite his best attempts to keep his eyes distant, set forward, Keith couldn’t help them climbing, drinking in the way the officer’s uniform hugged his broad chest, defined his strong shoulders, and gave way to a warm, dizzyingly handsome face. “Being so cute has to be against regulation.”

No amount of cheek-biting could restrain Keith’s reaction now. A smile pushed its way onto his lips, unbidden, and a warmth crept up under his skin.

Reaching out, he gave Shiro a halfhearted shove in the middle of his chest. Shiro didn’t budge, just laughed, low and quiet and intimate, close over Keith. One of his hands went to the drawstring of the sweatshirt that Keith was wearing and gave it a gentle tug.

“This isn’t yours,” Shiro said.

Keith lifted a hand to swat Shiro’s away, and found Shiro’s statement supported by the way that the sleeves fell well over his knuckles, almost dripping off his fingers. 

“You left it in my room on Saturday,” Keith replied.

Shiro didn’t answer him. Instead he let him have a fond little smile, the kind that made Keith’s heart do something that was probably unnatural, and then stepped back around him.

“Come on,” he said.

Keith followed. Unquestioningly. The thought that he would follow Shiro right off the edge of the world flickered through his mind. 

“What would you have done if it wasn’t me who found you?” Shiro asked as they walked. “You would’ve been in a lot of trouble if it’d been Iverson.”

“I knew it was you,” Keith replied, but Shiro cut him a look. 

“Still, don’t be so careless,” Shiro said. “If you keep behaving out of line they’re not going to be very happy with you. Your simulation scores won’t be able to protect you, you know.”

They turned down an infrequently-used side hall. Keith assumed Shiro was picking this route to avoid other officers. If Keith was seen now it wouldn’t be such a big deal, not with an officer at his side, but that would bring up a few “why”s that neither of them particularly wanted to deal with. Especially with Keith out of uniform. _Especially_ especially with Keith out of uniform, in Shiro’s black sweatshirt.

“It’s fine,” Keith said in an effort to stem Shiro’s familiar lecture, though he knew Shiro was right. He also knew that if he got kicked out of the Garrison it would be the end of...this. Whatever _this_ was. And the end of flying. And with those two combined, the end of everything good that had ever happened to him, essentially.

It must have shown on Keith’s face, or maybe Shiro got distracted by other things, because he dropped it as they rounded another corner into a remote corridor.

The lights were out, the hallway dark and soft. At its one end a broad window looked out over the desert, moonlight creeping over the red sand dunes and into the corridor, where it touched the floor and the walls with thick swathes of silver. As Keith neared it he could make out the distant stars, speckles of white against the shifting navy of the sky. He went to it, rested a hip against the window frame and looked out, watched the way the world was so still.

“No one will come down this way,” Shiro said, stepping up beside him and perching on the edge of the sill. 

Keith was grateful for it. Time with Shiro was already a precious commodity. Keith counted himself lucky if he could catch him in the commissary or the gym or the library most of the time. _Alone_ time with Shiro was another matter entirely, a rare and special treat granted to him only in those infrequent instances when Shiro could extricate himself from his thick tangle of responsibilities. He didn’t know if Shiro shirking his hallway patrol right now was considered that, necessarily, but it played out to his benefit. 

“Good,” Keith said, evenly, though he didn’t feel very even at all.

He didn’t look at Shiro for a moment because he didn’t know if he _could_. This thing between them, this bright new warmth, was still fresh and fragile enough that it made all his words catch in his throat, that it made his chest feel too big and too tight all at once. Shiro was of a kind of overwhelming handsomeness and goodness that Keith had never quite expected to find himself in close proximity to. That Shiro would ever turn his attention back on Keith was a warm shock, every single time, even now when they’d been friends for ages, even now when this bond between them was shaping itself into something different.

Keith couldn’t look at Shiro, but that didn’t dampen his urge to _touch_. He reached out and poked his hand from his sleeve, found Shiro’s own in a way that was slowly becoming normalized between them but still sent his heartbeat into a frenzied pattern. Shiro’s fingers slid between his easily, the open width of his palm warm rasping against Keith’s. Keith latched on and held.

They’d never talked about this. About the obvious change that was taking place here. How just a few weeks ago Keith’s heart had felt worn paperthin with the stifled feelings he restrained there, yet how something had shifted, and now, these days, touching Shiro felt more natural than not touching him. He couldn’t pinpoint where it had started, only that it was suddenly happening, all around him, maybe _had been_ in an accelerating roll set off in the moment they’d first met. It was made of eye contact lingering a beat too long, then of ruffling hair, then of a steady palm at the small of his back, then of pinkies brushing. Sitting next to each other somehow became sitting pressed together, touching at any reasonable point of contact. The hand on his shoulder became an arm around his waist.

In secret, of course. Always in secret. There were too many people here with their claws just barely retracted, waiting to tear down the Garrison’s star pilot, ready to rip apart his talented-but-difficult mentee. Which was why tonight was a cherished opportunity. 

“That looks good on you,” Shiro said of the sweatshirt, tone soft as the dimness of the hallway. “I think black might be your color.” 

“You said Garrison uniform orange was my color,” Keith replied, and made the mistake of looking at Shiro as he said this. Shiro was angled towards him, all the lines of his face traced by the milky light of the moon, his black hair effortlessly perfect. He looked something ethereal.

Especially as he smiled, easy and open. “That was a joke, Keith.”

Keith tried to look away and found that now that he’d been ensnared by Shiro’s eyes, he couldn’t. It didn’t seem to matter anymore, not as Shiro raised his free hand to cup at the side of Keith’s neck, as though holding him in place. Anchoring him, like he half expected Keith to go leaping out the window at any moment.

“But honestly, you somehow manage to pull that off too,” Shiro said.

Keith snorted. Tried to dislodge the floaty feeling from his stomach by squeezing Shiro’s hand tighter. It had the opposite effect.

Shiro looked so willing and open, giving and accepting, his strong lines dulled by the moonlight. Hunger was something that Keith wasn’t unfamiliar with, but this sort of fiercely warm want was new, something he’d never experienced before. He couldn’t believe the things in him that were cresting to a hearty need, sparked so many months ago by the way this man had patience enough to handle a bristling orphan armed with an attitude of wildfire.

He wanted, he wanted, he _wanted_ , in a way that was startlingly gentle and unaggressive. It was an unbelievably simple thing, how it all tightened into just the one, singular desire. How everything beyond this, beyond wanting to know what Shiro’s lips felt like, what they felt like on his own lips, could just vanish.

Shiro’s hand slid up to his face, and it was strong, steadying. It kept Keith battened down. The way the pad of his thumb brushed along Keith’s cheekbone made him feel more part of the world than he ever had before. Like he had a place here, on this Earth, and this was it, here. Here, leaning in the pale moonlight, basking in Shiro’s gaze, their warmth merging, their breaths intermingling. He was tied to this moment like he’d never been tied to anything before in his life.

“May I?” Shiro asked, barely more than a whisper.

Keith needed a moment to find his own voice. “Do it,” he rasped, all hope and shaky breath.

It was such a soft, gentle thing, so opposite from everything else in Keith’s life. This was as different as it could get from the jarring jolts of the simulator, the gritty sand in his boots, the harsh words of reprimanding instructors, the heat that always pulsed just underneath his skin. The first press was tentative, testing, brief and light like the flap of a moth’s wings. But it still sent a kind of electric thrill through Keith. Shiro was easy against him, though held him firm, and Keith had never known that he needed something so mild.

They barely parted before coming together again. This time slower, more exploratory. Shiro’s lips parted, and Keith followed, unthinkingly. Felt the give of Shiro’s mouth, the quiet exchange of sighs. Keith tilted his head, found something there that seared against him in the best way. And Shiro’s hand was in Keith’s hair, then, and one of Keith’s hands on his chest while the other found the jut of his hip. This warmth was incomparable, both inside and out, in the way that it both made Keith feel sedated and yet ferociously desirous. His heart pounded, his stomach swooped, but he was unreasonably pleased to be the recipient of Shiro’s slow and unwavering affection.

They broke away, but stayed close, so that Keith could make out the way Shiro’s eyelashes curved. Breathing in sync, their gazes focused in on each other. Keith wished, absently, that he could make a home, here, in this moment.

“Can we do that again?” Shiro asked, voice little more than the low rumble of thunder in the distance.

Keith didn’t answer. He just did.


End file.
